Music can soothe the savage breast but my old friend, Jim Steele, contends that it’s not soothing music we need in these difficult times, but rather music to coalesce our anger and focus our resistance. Please enjoy this guest post.

“Let fury have the hour, anger can be power.” Joe Strummer wrote that, years after proving it with “White Riot”, the Clash’s first release. He wrote that after watching Black kids clash with riot police in Notting Hill.

Neil Young’s “Ohio”, released in 1970, may be the best example, and the ultimate model for artists with a conscience in 2026. Media was different then, Young didn’t know enough about the National Guard killing of four students at Kent State until he saw the photos long afterward in Life magazine. But then he wrote one of the most scathing, memorable protest songs in modern history in 15 minutes. Within days, CSNY recorded it in four takes, David Crosby weeping by the end.

Where has this outrage been in the MAGA era? Missing, mostly, until perhaps now.

Plenty of musical artists have been outspoken in opposition. I saw Bruce Springsteen perform the very day after Trump’s re-election, opening with the words “This is a fighting prayer for my country.” And he changed his setlist to give new poignancy to old songs like “Long Walk Home” and “Land of Hope and Dreams”. Neil Young is still outspoken and has taken action, pulling his music from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon. And some rap artists have created actual protest music, with blistering songs about the Black experience in modern America, like Dezi’s “Rage”. But rap reaches only part of America and, arguably, not much of the part of America whose support the Republicans need to keep. Also, the criticism of Trump and MAGA from rock and pop musicians has primarily been words, not music. People queuing up Spotify or Apple Music in their headphones aren’t singing along to words. The real power to move people is in music.

Now, though, we see and hear that start to change. Jesse Welles was first to reach big, and growing, audiences with songs that mock the President and his supporters. Welles has been a widely shared discovery for the last few years, now firmly in the zeitgeist and on the late-night talk show circuit. He’s not simply a protest singer, but his songs that skewer MAGA do so with clever, sarcastic satire built on a foundation of anger. And they’re catchy. I recommend “Red” and his withering put-down of the border security paramilitary thugs, “Join ICE”.

As clever as Welles is, I have worried that the humour and the folksy acoustic charm of his music only preaches to the choir and isn’t powerful enough to move a crowd. However, after the killing by ICE of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Welles released something more immediate and emotional, “Good vs. ICE”. As of this writing, all I’ve been able to find is a snippet of the song on social media. Let’s hope there’s more, soon.

Now, Bruce Springsteen has raised the bar with a classic Neil Young-like response to the murders of both Good and Alex Pretti. Seeing what we’ve all seen of the execution of the Minneapolis nurse in the snow, The Boss wrote “Streets of Minneapolis” over the next weekend, went into the studio and recorded it two days later, and released it on Wednesday. There is no humour in this song, no clever satire, no punches pulled. It’s a call to arms that names names. The Trump administration responded with its usual tired claim that Springsteen, like other artists critical of Trump (such as Taylor Swift), is irrelevant and talentless. Perhaps that was before they noticed that “Streets of Minneapolis” is #1 on the iTunes chart, and others.

Almost immediately, the wonderful Billy Bragg offered up this celebration of Minneapolis, “City of Heroes”.

Let’s hope other musical artists notice that too, find their voice and turn outrage into inspiration. Popular music has real power to unite and motivate, we saw that in the 60s and 70s. But America has never before seen anything like what’s happening right now. The USA, and the world, needs more anthems for 2026. Let fury have the hour.

Thank you for this guest post, Jim!

As I look back on the protest songs that coloured my teen/young adult years, I realize they were mostly about war, at least the ones I recall. A song I loved, but didn’t fully appreciate until I recently read the history, is Sam Cooke’s “Change Gonna Come”. Released in 1964, Cooke’s song became one of the anthems of the civil rights movement. Its inspiration is hotly debated with some citing Cooke and his band being turned away from a Holiday Inn they’d reserved, while others claim that enforced segregation at one of his concerts two years earlier prompted him to say things have got to change.

Amen to that.

Until next time, run through your memory banks for all the protest songs that inspired you in some way.

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